Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #22 (First Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #22
Justice League #43, Batman #45, The Terrifics #3, Batman and the Signal #3, Hit-Girl #3, Justice League of America #29, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


Comic Book Reviews!

Justice League #43
By Priest and Woods

Last issue ended with Deathstork murdering The Fan, the guy who knew all of the Justice League's secrets. Superman and Batman both scolded Deathstork for murdering a guy in cold blood but Deathstork defended himself by saying, "You all know...." That was as far as he got before Batman was all, "You're right! Let's talk about something else now, maybe something that isn't also how we're not going to arrest you. I mean, you had a very convincing argument when you asked, 'Did you actually see me kill him?' after which, I'm assuming, you winked."

See, Deathstork only has one eye so you can't really tell if he's winking or not. Did you get that joke? Was I too subtle? Sometimes I'm way too subtle which is funny because most of the criticism I receive from boring people is that my reviews aren't subtle. But then, those are people who actually believe I'm reviewing comic books.

Deathstork and the Justice League begin to fight because a newscopter comes along and the Justice League are all, "We'd better make this ooklay oodgay!" (They speak in Pig Latin so the newspeople can't understand their plan to trick them.) During the battle, Deathstork calls Batman a pacifist. I think maybe Deathstork needs to buy a dictionary. Deathstork may have killed more people than Batman but I think Batman has broken more bones in other people than Deathstork has. And not from hugs, you dum-dums who also think Batman is a pacifist. I could see how it can be confusing though. Batman does hit a lot of people with his fist so at first I was thinking, "Oh yeah! He's totally into pack-a-fisting things!" Then I was all, "That didn't make any sense. Maybe I should buy a dictionary."

Cyborg's plan which he doesn't explain to the readers but the readers know what it is (especially when the reader is me) is to have Deathstork defeat the Justice League on camera so that everybody will run away. That solves the problem somehow. Maybe it's like putting a club on your steering wheel. It's not really that effective at keeping a thief from stealing your car but car thieves see it and just move on to a car without one simply because it's easier to drive a car without a club on the steering wheel.

Even if you were one of those reviewers at Weird Science, you'd probably have realized that the Justice League was throwing the fight because Aquaman was knocked out when Deathstork threw Batman into him. I know Aquaman is lame but comic book physics still have to apply. If Batman was really hurled into Aquaman, Batman's neck would break and Aquaman's nipples have a slight possibility of getting hard. Also, I just read Weird Science's review of this and they totally didn't get the plan until it was explained later.

After everything is sorted (well, sort of sorted), Cyborg asks Batman (after punching him in the face (which is the best time to ask Batman questions)), "Did you bring The Fan to Africa to die?" Batman doesn't answer the question which is the only answer I needed for my question as to why Batman and the others let Deathstork run free. They definitely approve of him killing the people they need killed. The only reason Batman gets so annoyed when Jason Todd or Batwoman kill is that they're ruining his brand. But Deathstork? He's the perfect tool for ridding Batman of sticky problems.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars. Priest gives the Justice League some ethical problems to work through and they don't really work through them. But that's the nature of comic books. The story is just to give the readers a glimpse at one aspect of being a member of a global force for good and how it's used. It's like asking that stupid question, "If God is omnipotent, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" You can't really answer the question. You can just present it so that people go, "Oh yeah! That's a right corker!" Then maybe you can say some things that make it sound like the question has been answered so people leave you alone afterward. But mostly, Priest's story is just one of those stories to say, "You know why the Justice League doesn't fix everything? Because they can't! Duh! Now forget all of that grey stuff because they need to white the universe from black!"


Batman #45
By King, Daniel, and Morey

Rating: 9 out of 10. That might be a little high but it's because there's something I really like about this issue. It's a time travel story which I usually hate. But it's a time travel story which shows why time travel stories are so dumb. In this issue, Booster Gold goes back in time to save Bruce's parents so that Bruce can experience the terrible world that would result from that having happened. Then when everything goes back to normal, Bruce will be all, "Oh yeah! I'm glad my parents are dead! Thanks for such a beautiful wedding gift!" (Oh yeah. The premise is that this is Booster's wedding gift to Batman.)

So anyway, Booster fucks it all up because Booster is an incompetent moron. Which, I'm assuming (almost certainly correctly!), is King's metaphor for how people who write time travel stories are incompetent morons who always ruin everything! "But how could it all go wrong?" you sad losers ask in a sad and loserish way. Because Booster Gold forgets how much Bruce loves his parents! So when Bruce learns the truth, he smashes Skeets so that he can forever live in a terrible timeline where Ra's rules Eurasia and people turn into Jokers on a daily basis in Gotham and Dick Grayson is the biggest 90s Image superhero ever! And of course, now it's up to Booster Gold to fix everything! What a dumb jerk (just like all the writers who write terrible time travel stories! (which maybe now includes Tom King? Oh man! Is that the biggest time travel paradox yet? That I love Tom King's Batman but I hate time travel stories so now I hate Tom King and/or love his time travel story?! (I'm confused. How many parenthetical references has this been?)))!

Booster Gold is more enjoyable in this issue than he is in any issue Dan Jurgens has ever written. That's because Tom King presents him more as the Giffen and Giffen's pal (you remember him! The guy who wrote Moonshadow!) version of Booster. He's a bit of an incompetent dork. That version was always much better than the one where Booster Gold is the sheriff of all time and the most important character in DC continuity.

I still maintain that people who dislike Tom King's Batman have no sense of whimsy and do not enjoy actual story-telling. They just want standard continuity and no risks Batman stories that remind them of all the other boring Batman stories they've read over their sad and pathetic lives reviewing comics at the Weird Science blog.

As a story teller, Tom King might be one of the best comic book writers around. Maybe he's not the best writer or the best at allowing fans at cons to give him oral sex. But he tells entertaining stories. I suppose if you have a continuity stick up your butt and you expect characters to rigorously represent all of the facts listed in DC's Who's Who, and these things force you to scowl and dismiss any enjoyable story that doesn't maintain those standards, I can see why you're stupid. I mean why you don't like Tom King's Batman. Sorry that I just repeated myself there.


The Terrifics #3
By Bennett, Lemire, Hope, and Maiolo

Excuse me, DC? DC? Can I get your attention for a second? I just wanted to clarify something about this whole Dark Nights Metal off-shoot comics thing you're doing? Weren't each of these series supposed to excite the audience by tying the best writers with the best artists? And wasn't this supposed to be the book where Ivan Reis spread butter all over my inner butt cheeks so he could more easily bring me to orgasmic bliss? Because I just looked at the cover through a haze of butter that dripped into my eyes and I'm fairly certain Ivan isn't the artist here. And it's only, you know, the third fucking issue? DC? DC? Where are you going? Aren't you going to answer my question?!

It's a good thing I don't purchase my comics based on who's drawing them. That's the immature way to pick comic books and I'm the exact opposite of immature. Although my favorite moment in Batman #45 was when Booster Gold busts into Bruce's birthday party (unless it's his parents' anniversary party (it might be both!)) and says, "I got you a present, Batman!" Then Skeets is all, "Bruce Wayne." And Booster shouts, "I got you a present, Bruce Wayne!" I suppose if I really were mature, I wouldn't have thought that was funny because it wasn't in iambic pentameter and it didn't subtly refer to a penis.

Another piece of evidence that doesn't support the opposite of immature theory is that my favorite part of this comic book is Phantom Girl's butt.

I mean, sure, it's no Supergirl's bum. And it's not Ivan Reis's Phantom Girl's butt. But it will do, pig. It will do.

Rating: 4 Phantom Girl Butts out of 6 Supergirl Bums. This comic book is comic booky. That's the adjective I save for comic books that I can simply enjoy as comic books. They aren't trying to be anything else and I admire them for that. They've accepted their place in this universe in much the same way I haven't accepted mine. They're better than I'll ever be.

It's just so nice to be able to read a comic book that doesn't make me think nor does it make me think that I should be thinking. Sometimes I want to read a difficult comic book so that I can sound smart when I talk about it. But have you tried finding a difficult comic book?! I might as well be looking for a dick that has been inside of a vagina after I've time traveled to an early eighties San Diego Comic Con. Of course if I did find one, I'd know that I messed up the calculations and landed at a 70s con. Lucky sex crazed bastards.


Batman and the Signal #3
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

This issue begins with Jason Todd saying, "I know you think he's always on time — but in my experience, Batman's always been a little too late." Geez, Todd. Get over it already! So one time he didn't save your life! You can't constantly judge a person on one mistake! You have to wait until they've written twenty or thirty issues of New 52 Teen Titans before judging them constantly! Also, don't go back and read my reviews of Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans because they might expose me for a judgmental hypocrite who immediately started judging Lobdell one-third of the way through the first issue.

Later, Duke Thomas learns that he's a Jesus figure in both the Christian sense and the sun god sense. Duke's family history mirrors Jesus's while the emphasis of this entire story is on the role of daytime in Gotham.

And now, a short dramatic scene in a bar after James Tynion IV had one beer more than he usually has!

Scott: "Have you noticed how nothing ever happens in the day in Gotham, James IV?"
James: "What? Of course stuff happens in the day. Sometimes the Joker even attacks in broad...."
Scott: "Right. So I was thinking, 'What if Gotham had a hero that went out during the day?'"
James: "Like the way Batman sometimes goes out during...."
Scott: "And everything can be day-themed! Like his nemesis can be The Sundial! No, no! GNOMON!"
James: "That's great, Scott. Genius. So smart."
Scott: "Thanks, James IV. But is it enough? It needs a little more of a hook, especially since I'm thinking of using Duke as the day hero. He's already the most boring Bat-kid. How to spruce him up?"
James: "Maybe he's bisexual? And he's got a bit of a crush on his mentor? And maybe one night he drinks one beer more than he usually does and expresses his passionate love for him?"
Scott: "Oh! That's a great idea, James IV! Make him a Jesus figure! That way we can reference how special he is and how he's The One and how he's super important to the DC Universe no matter how boring he is!"
James: "Um, yeah. That's, um, exactly what I just said. I love you."
Scott: "Did you say you drug Jews, James IV? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want a bi-line on this new series I just came up with? And did you get my joke? I said 'B-I-line' instead of 'B-Y-line'! Because you're bisexual!"
James: "Can we get the check? I have to go home now."

Rating: 2 out 5 Sundials. Signal is an appropriate name for Duke Thomas because it's such a boring name. And just to be clear, half of the Sundials I awarded to this issue were because the series was only three issues long. Thank Thomas for that!


Hit-Girl #3
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

This is the issue where Kick-Ass Hit-Girl wades in a little too deep and winds up captured by the people she's been mercilessly slaughtering. You can't have a realistic non-comic book comic book about violence without the hero feeling the threat of death at some point. But being this series is only four issues instead of the usual six, it's also the issue where she escapes capture! Because in the end, even a non-comic book comic book is still a comic book. Nobody wants a real non-comic book story about a violent vigilante because it wouldn't even have enough story to fill one issue before the double-sized final funeral special.

Rating: I still don't like the art although it's probably appropriate for an over-the-top violent comic that relies on proclaiming how cartoony it is or else it would simply be too vulgar for the general population. And when you rely on the general population being thrilled by movies based on your comic books, you have to ease into the super violent territory. Although, I suppose, that argument doesn't really work because the movie this will be turned into will be quite realistic and still have just as much violence and people will love it. That's probably why they had to add the theme to The Banana Splits to Hit-Girl's most violent scene in the first movie. It made it more cartoonish and thus acceptable.


Justice League of America #29
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

At some point in the last few months, some higher-up at DC Comics decided that every comic book they publish should be part of the canonical DC Universe. I think somebody in charge finally read some of Grant Morrison's comic books and thought, "I have a great idea! We should simply allow writers to acknowledge anything we've ever published in the stories they write!" They didn't notice that their eyes began glowing red nor could they have known of the sudden erection that appeared in Grant Morrison's pants. Three of the children's souls Morrison keeps in jars in the pantry dissolved into blessed oblivion as his spell took hold. Now Tom Strong has appeared in The Terrifics and The Watchmen are crossing over into regular DC continuity and Promethea guest-starred in JLA and all the Young Animal imprints crossed over with Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and Danny the Street was used by Chronos to kill Ahl whose first appearance was in the new Doom Patrol and all of Catwoman and Batman's suit changes throughout DC history were showcased in a recent issue of Batman. It's just the kind of thing that makes continuity nerds shit themselves because now they have to accept that Batman pissed his pants thanks to a throw away Kevin Smith line in his and Walt Flanagan's Batman book.

Don't worry about me though! I'm not one of those nerds! I'm the kind of nerd who thinks every single thing that ever happened in a comic book character's long existence should be part of their baggage. Even if fans hate it or it's problematic or it was such a huge miscommunication between the artist and writer that now Hank Pym is a wife beater. I'll accept anything as continuity since that can only help the case that every Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew story has happened in the same universe as Bruce's parents being brutally murdered in an alley.

I'm also pro anything that gives Grant Morrison an erection.

Some people might not think that this is a radical position to hold or that I'm not sacrificing anything by embracing it. But remember that in my comic book philosophy, every story by Scott Lobdell and Ann Nocenti have actually taken place! You have to take the good with the bad. And also the bad with the worst which is, of course, Cullen Bunn's versions of Lobo and Aquaman.

This book ends with Justice League of America becoming the Justice Foundation. That means they'll be using their powers and resources to make the world a better place. I'm assuming the first order of business is to license their teleportation technology to the rest of the world? And maybe to put Alfred's healing tea on sale across the country? What about Lazarus Pit technology? Is that ready for market or does everybody return with insatiable blood lust? Would that even be noticeable in America?

Rating: 4 out of 5 Lobos. Speaking of Lobo, he made an appearance in this issue (which is why the issue received such a high rating (I'm not like one of those totally subjective reviewers who constantly proclaim they're objective. I know I'm subjective (and when I say I'm objective, it's obviously a joke. I can't believe how often I refuse to explain that to idiots who comment on my blog))). It was a strange guest appearance because everybody knows Lobo is a genocidal maniac but still The Atom sends Chronos to be punished by Lobo! It doesn't make any sense unless Orlando is writing a super soft version of Lobo who respects Batman's no-killing rule even when he's not on the team. Or an even softer super soft version of Lobo who made friends with The Atom and respects Atom's opinions and his way of life enough to simply beat Chronos badly instead of killing him. Orlando's Lobo isn't as bad as Bunn's Lobo but he's really skirting the edge. The edge is that place where I read a comic book and then attack the writer's grandparents for giving birth to parents that gave birth to that writer.

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Slave Girl by Love/Hate
This is the kind of song that, upon hearing it begin, your parents might say, "I'm happy to hear you listening to the kind of music we loved! This is that freedom rock, right?" Then the voice the singer uses throughout the album that he doesn't use in the beginning of this song screeches out of the speakers along with the heavier guitar riffs. Suddenly your parents make that face which indicates young people's music is terrible but they don't want to seem uncool so they don't say anything except an involuntary tut as they clutch the pearls that aren't actually there because they spent all of their money raising a musical heathen.
     That description only actually works if this is the year this album came out. Which was nearly thirty years ago. Although since everything is now topsy-turvy, it's possible this song is being played by parents while their children have that reaction. It does have the chorus "She's a gang-bang slave girl. I'll be your home boy," which seems like lyrics that didn't move any kind of outrage dial on our generation but might get a young person today to say, five or six times in one breath, the words "problematic" and "gross" with a side-helping of "cultural appropriation" (because it is a white guy saying "home boy," maybe? I seldom can figure out the reason for offense these days. Maybe young people just react violently to older generations showing any kind of joy).
     I just remembered that I had Love/Hate's second album but I can't really remember it. That's probably fine. The album this song was from, Blackout in the Red Room, was huge in my life in my late teens. Now I generally skip most of the songs when they come up on my shuffle. The whole album just feels like it should be heard while hanging out with friends drinking too much Jack Daniels. When I'm at work, it just doesn't give the right energy.
Grade: C+.


Tupelo by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
This song makes me a little bit sad. It begins "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cloud come. Big black cloud come." I used to sing it to my cat Judas: "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cat come. Big black cat come." Then I would change Tupelo to Jupelo which became one of his nicknames.
      Speaking of Judas's death and current non-existence in the universe, the other day, the Non-Certified Spouse was searching YouTube for videos where cat's squeak like our Pelafina on the living room television via the Xbox. When she couldn't find any, she searched for Turkish Angora cats because that's what we suspected Judas was. She found a video of a cat named Precious who looked almost exactly like Judas. As we watched, Pelafina (who loved Judas as her brother-mother, having suckled on his male nipples when she was just a kitten and he was about a year old) noticed. Her tail poofed up a bit and she crawled toward the television watching Judy's doppleganger cross the screen. After a few seconds, she was distracted and turned away. Her tail returned to normal (unlike when something frightens her and it takes a while to return to its former size). But as the action on the television changed and Precious began moving around again, she looked back and her tail poofed up as she walked right up to the television to take a look. It was both the saddest and most joyful thing I've experienced in a while.
     I've always wondered if Pelafina remembers Judas since most of her time was spent trying to encroach on his space and get him to put her in a headlock as he licked her roughly. She loved him immensely. This seems to confirm that she remembers him since the only other time she reacted so strongly and instantly to images on television was the opening to Constantine (which must prove she's from Hell, I guess?). But now she must think that we've locked Judas away in some kind of Phantom Zone where she can't cuddle with him. I bet she hates us so much right now.
     Oh, I was supposed to be reviewing this song, wasn't I? Well, it's a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song. If you know their stuff, you know exactly what that means. If you don't, maybe this will help you: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' music sounds like your car broke down on a deserted highway where the only building nearby is a haunted lounge run by hipster vampires who haven't paid their electric bill so they run everything on a generator which causes the lights to dim and brighten at random intervals. As you approach the building to see if you can get help, a pack of a dozen itinerant and dirty people come out of the shadows and begin slowly following you while chanting in a barely audible whisper that steadily rises until they're shouting in your ear and you have a mental breakdown.
Grade: B+.


Under My Wheels by Alice Cooper
This is the first song on the album Killer and it might be one of the all-time greatest opening album songs. But before I discuss why that is, can we take a look at that cover?

Remember that project in first grade where the teacher takes a picture you've drawn and gets it transferred to a plate? This looks like Alice's.

If an album called Killer on a bright red background with a snake that is both a phallic symbol and makes you think of oral sex because of the tongue didn't enrage your parents in 1971, having to hear "Under My Wheels" blaring out of your room must have pushed them over the edge. Aside from the driving guitar and thumping rhythm that obviously says, "I'm old enough to be thinking about sex constantly, mom and dad!", this song is either about a person running over their lover or being driven so maddeningly out of their mind by their passion for this person that they will run over everybody in town to go fuck that person. It's hard to say what "I've got you under my wheels" actually means. You would think it meant Alice was having some serious car trouble.
     And if your parents weren't completely driven mad at that point, the second song on the album, "Be My Lover," probably finished the job. It pulls them in by making them think, "Oh, this album isn't so bad at all. It's a bit country and blues, I guess!" Then the chorus is all, "If you want to be my lover, you'd better take me home!" and your parents' heads blew up as they kicked in the door and screamed, "NOT IN MY HOUSE, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH!"
Grade: A-.


Skips a Beat (Over You) by The Promise Ring
If The Beatles or The Monkees were still alive and had heard this song, they would have killed themselves over not having written it themselves (or, in The Monkees' case, they would have killed their song writers (I mean right up until they wrote their own songs!)). I'm not sure a more perfect pop song chorus exists. Too bad it exists in the same song as the verses which are lyrically like stepping in dog shit when you're too drunk to care (I wonder if my music review metaphors to describe songs are as universal as I think they are?). I mean, they're not bad in the way stepping in dog shit is always bad. But they're kind of annoying that they've happened and they're messing up your walk home where you had planned to just collapse in bed and sleep blissfully but now you're going to have to do something about this mess.
     At least the song is short and most of it is composed of the chorus. I'd also like to point out that the musical bridge between the penultimate chorus and the final chorus is just as lovely and perfect as the chorus. So if you ignore the dog poop parts, it's really the perfect pop song.
Grade: A-.


Videodrones: Questions by Trent Reznor
Is this a song? I guess it's not really a song. It's off the Lost Highway soundtrack so it can be forgiven for not being a song. Also it's by Trent Reznor for a David Lynch movie so you're going to get what you're going to get, no matter what you just ordered from the menu. This "song" sounds like a guy masturbating in a canyon while reassuring his penis that everything is going to work out just fine right before something apocalyptic happens. I don't know what that thing is but you can tell by the music at the end that the guy's orgasm didn't really go as planned.
Grade: D.

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Letters to Me!

I didn't get any letters this week, you slackers! But I did have this Twitter exchange with Tom King:

That's all for this week, you jerks! Later!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #19 (Second Week of April 2018)

E!TACT! #19
Metal #6, Justice League: All Access, Doomsday Clock #4, Mother Panic: Gotham AD #1, The Hellblazer #20, Detective Comics #977, Justice League of America #27, Demon: Hell is Earth #5, Suicide Squad #38, The Terrifics #2, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4, and Deathstroke vs. Batman #30
By Grunion Guy!


Comic Book Reviews!

Metal #6
By Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia

Fact That Isn't Fun (It's Just a Fact, You Know?): Metal is the longest running six issue comic book series in DC's history that also has the most issues (well over six! I lost count somewhere around year ten).

But it's finally over, guys! I'm using guys the way the young generation use it after they've just gone to Wikipedia to learn as much as they can about a thing that somebody else mentioned in an attempt to pretend they always knew more about it than they originally did. I mean, I'm not completely using it that way since I haven't just read (and will never read) the Wikipedia entry on Metal. I probably couldn't even find the right one since it certainly disambiguates into dozens of different entries.

Today, I become a man! No, not because I'm going to finally have sex! I did that like four years ago. Today I'm a man because finishing this series feels like the biggest accomplishment of my life! After having sex, of course. Which is what really made me a man in society's eyes. Up until that point, I was just a loser virgin who could tell how every color of kryptonite affects Superman and how many times in the original Star Wars you can see the outline of Mark Hamill's cock through his pants.

Earth-Main-Earth has sunk into the Dark Multiverse. Wonder Woman and Lady Blackhawk remain the last hope for all mankind. And, I'm assuming, the entire Earth-Main-Earth universe. I'm never quite clear on how much the problems on Earth are affecting the rest of the universe. I think, as human readers, we're supposed to narcissistically believe that the fate of the entire cosmos hangs in the balance of what happens to Earth. Mostly I think all of the aliens would just like to see Earth-Main-Earth destroyed for good. There would be so much less drama.

Plastic Man finally wakes up to save the day and I lose all respect for this comic book. Nobody believes Plastic Man can save the world! He's the biggest joke since a few of those schoolyard jokes about the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Who came up with those jokes immediately after the tragedy? I bet it was some Deep State comedian who knew the Challenger was going to be blown up by government operatives and aliens.

Luckily, Plastic Man only saves the day for like a page. I'm not even sure why he was in this comic book. I'm guessing it was a drunken bet between Scott Snyder and Dan DiDio. Snyder was all, "I bet I can bring Plastic Man back into the DC Universe in a serious way." And DiDio was all, "No way. There's less chance of that than a comic book with two women in a romantic and healthy relationship not having a mature rating." And then Snyder was all, "If I fail, you can have James Tynion IV for a night." And DiDio was all, "Deal!"

After Plastic Man saves the day, Wonder Woman saves the day. But only until the real saviors arrive.

Monkeys and Batmen!

Now I'm pissed at DC Comics. They spent five years trying to sell everybody a historically watered down and less fun version of their comic book universe by claiming there were just 52 worlds. But all that time they could have been printing a comic book full of monkeys on a 53rd Earth?! Does DC have no actual business men running their business?!

Batman and Superman also return because I guess they're the ones who need to save the day. The monkeys and Plastic Man and alternate Batmen weren't actually important after all and never really appear again after that splash page arrival. They were the non-raisin bits of this Raisin Bran. Oh, I guess that would be the bran. Now, I like raisins as much as any other boring person but could any company in any of the 53 universes have come up with a more unappetizing name for a cereal? I mean aside from Grape Nuts.

Maybe I should give up on trying to determine who actually saves the day because this issue is just scene after scene of somebody arriving to save the day but then the day never actually gets saved. I guess they're all just making things more hopeful. Especially when The Joker saves the day. That's when every Fangender is supposed to go, "Did Snyder include his dick in this comic book because I think I'm supposed to start sucking it now?"

In the end, the Justice League pull some Sailor Moon shit and believe in each other and save the world while holding hands while remembering all the good times they had with each other, like the time Sailor Batman cheered up Sailor Wonder Woman, and the time Sailor Superman gave Sailor Flash a prostate exam.

Rating: There's the typical epilogue that explains things have only been saved (by fifty different people) for a short time because things are actually going to get worse than what they just went through. You know how stories foreshadow future events as they go along in an unobtrusive way that sometimes you don't even catch until a subsequent rereading? Being a comic book (and a Scott Snyder comic book, at that), this isn't like that. The story resolves with the heroes winning and then there's an epilogue where Batman says, "Things are just going to get worse!" and Lucius says, "Dream, where are you? OMG! There's a book missing in the library of books never written! What does it mean? Aside from it suddenly having been written or something." This is the part where I might wonder how comic books can keep escalating but I've learned that the escalation is all just an illusion. This seemed like the biggest threat to the universe since the last one but was it? They're all really just the same. The bottom line is that everything is always on the line. This story just made the 'everything' part bigger by removing the Source Wall, expanding the DC Universe, and creating a lovable Earth full of monkeys.

All in all, it was a big event that was quite comic booky. That's all I'm looking for. The main problem was all the tie-ins that didn't matter and didn't really add much to the story. DC should have just made this an eight issue series, folding Hawkman Found and The Wild Hunt into the main story. All of the other books should have been scrapped.


Justice League: No Justice All Access Page
By whoever writes this shit

Here's a quote about No Justice from Francis Manapul: "Anyone who has asked for Harley Quinn, Martian Manhunter, Starfire, Zatanna, the Atom, Raven or Doctor Fate to be in their personal Justice League will stand up and cheer." It's nice to see he's shooting for the smallest audience possible. I was almost cheering but he included the Atom instead of Lobo. Man, I was so close to being one of the three people excited for this!


Doomsday's Cock #4
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

Based on this cover, the comic should be called "Rorschach's Cock is Long and Weird."

Doomsday's cock was going to be long and weird since Doomsday has never really had any motivation for wanting to kill everything. But being enraged at the universe for having a micro-penis makes sense to me. Not that I know what it's like to have a micro-penis! My penis is at least twice as big as a micro-penis. And that's when it's flaccid! I know I shouldn't brag about the size of my penis when I'm writing comic book reviews that will be read by comic book nerds. Although I'm mostly writing to fans of DC Comics who have the biggest penises of all comic book fans. I haven't done research on this fact but I have to assume that DC fans have to have enough self-confidence to be shit on by Marvel fans on the daily. And you know the only way people can have any self-confidence is by being okay with their penis size, right?

I don't know how women gain self-confidence. By knowing guys with big penises?

I should stop writing about big penises because I'm getting anxious and a little bit scared.

Let's talk about Rorschach for a second! I just read a comic recently where a character stole the Rorschach line about people being locked up in prison with him but I can't remember which comic book it was. I wish I could remember because I couldn't help thinking, "Why, as a writer, are you lifting that line for your comic book?! It's like one of the most famous comic book lines which means your entire audience is going to snort and scoff when they read it and think, 'What a hack!'" Why didn't the writer use something like "To be or not to be, that's a fairly relevant question"? Less people would have known where the author had stolen that line from than the Rorschach line! That wasn't really talking about Rorschach. I'm sorry for lying to you in the segue into that paragraph.

This is where I first realized the new Rorschach was the son of Rorschach's psychiatrist. Was it evident earlier than this? I mean, probably since there were only two black characters in the entire run of Watchmen and one of them died hugging an old white man.

The new Rorschach, Reggie, has wound up in Earth-Main-Earth's Arkham Asylum because he trespassed in the Batcave. I guess Batman sometimes doesn't give a shit about the rule of law and he just backdoors people he doesn't like into Arkham. It's probably where Rorschach belongs since he was driven insane by Ozymandias's fake alien attack on New York City.

Reggie has been placed in Arkham across from Saturn Girl so I guess it's about time we learn why she's the only member of the Legion of Super-heroes left in DC continuity. I bet it's because she's the only one Superboy had sex with. She probably read his mind when he was looking at her at age sixteen and thinking, "I'd like to have sex with her!" She was flattered because she was too naïve to realize he was thinking that whenever he looked at any female Legionnaire. Also Superboy probably had sex with all of them. Why wouldn't he? The Legionnaires fucked everything that moved! It's what the entire series was based around.

Reggie and Saturn Girl escape while Alfred worries about another one of Batman's choices. How could Batman stick some guy who knew his identity into Arkham without at least erasing his mind first?! Hasn't he learned anything?!

Rating: Four dogs with split heads out of five dogs with split heads. Maybe even four and a half dogs with split heads. This is the first issue that makes me think Johns has the chops to pull this thing off. This issue was the secret origin of the new Rorschach and it may have taken me an hour to read. That's a compliment! Some reviewer said of the first issue of this series that it was a page turner that the reader devoured unlike Alan Moore's. That praise didn't sit right with me because it just screams of fluff and the same old bullshit tropes to make readers think they're reading something exciting. I want a comic book that forces me to take my time with it and this issue was finally that. If the rest of the series tanks, it may have been worth it for this issue alone. Hell, Mothman's story could have been a stand alone mini-comic that I would have raved about for minutes. Perhaps hours even. The one downside is that it didn't mention Doomsday's penis once.


Mother Panic: Gotham A.D. #1
By Houser, Moustafa, and Boyd

Rating: This might be better than the previous version. It also might be worse. It's hard to tell after just one issue, especially when that issue spends the majority of time reminding the reader that Mother Panic has been dumped in an alternate Gotham in an alternate time and an alternate place. Batman has gone missing in this Gotham, presumed dead by The Joker who noticed that nobody ever stops him killing people any more. The city isn't run by Owls either. Instead, The Collective (the organization behind Gather House and turning Violet Paige into Mother Panic) has taken control, turning Gotham into a great place to live (as long as you don't mind pretending you're living in a great place that actually sucks lady balls). The art fits the book, the sidekick character might be reminiscent of Hit-Girl but more likeable and cutesy, and something about Mother Panic's uniform makes me want to fuck her super hard. Not that I've ever fucked anything super hard. Unless almost sticking my penis inside of a vagina as my penis unwound its spool of silly string is an acceptable definition of fucking hard.


The Hellblazer #20
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

Rating: The art is terrible. Just awful. Maybe, occasionally, there's a shot of The Huntress's thighs that made me appreciate The Huntress's thighs just a little bit more than I did before. But that was one panel out of twenty pages of panels. That's about all the rant I have in me on that.

Remember when I used to be so harsh on artists and writers that I'd go on for multiple paragraphs trying to think up unique ways to use time travel to prevent their birth? And now that I've got a more private place to do it, you'd think I'd get even more blasphemous in my descriptions of Rube Goldberg machines that would destroy the fertility of the artist's mother's ovaries. But instead, I can only seem to write the equivalent of a shrug. And I think I know why that is.

When I got back into comic books and first began reading The New 52, I decided to take my time with each issue. I wanted to read carefully and examine each panel with a critical eye. I felt there was a mystery to be solved in this New 52. DC had to have some kind of a plan for their new universe. There had to be a genius reason behind throwing out all of their continuity to rebuild their superhero playground. I haven't reread them but I bet a lot of my early reviews were fairly innocent and upbeat. The jokes were at my own expense, exposing how dumb I was, never faulting the comic book. I chose to believe that I just couldn't fathom the secret depths of DC's huge plan. But ever so slowly, I began to see past the veil. DC had no plan. DC didn't know what they were doing. DC had put no thought into their idea and hired some of the worst comic book writers of all time to help them pretend they were doing something special. It drove me crazy and I began to attack every thing wrong with a merciless fervor.

Fans of DC that had jumped ship because of The New 52 had no sympathy for me. "You should have known," they commented, not really caring to engage with me but needing an outlet to pretend the temper tantrum they threw dropping DC was actually an intelligent and well-thought out choice. But these people didn't get it. DC had a chance to do something wonderful. They could have begun The New 52 with the idea that Rebirth or something like it would eventually happen. They could have had a plan in place. Things could have been foreshadowed across their entire line of comic books. What the people who instantly hated The New 52 failed to understand was that I was doing the science. I was out there running the numbers and doing the math and trying to solve the mystery of what DC was doing. So when I discovered that there was no substance behind The New 52, I took the passion I had for researching the mystery and applied it to mocking the fuck out of them. So, yeah. I eventually reached the same conclusion as all the butt-hurt fans who suddenly didn't have Wally West to jerk off over. But those fans dumped DC from the beginning of The New 52 without proof of its poorly thought out structure. They didn't have the numbers and the facts and the research that I had to back the opinion that The New 52 failed miserably. They claimed to have hated The New 52 but none of them really had to experience it in-depth like I did.

But now that everything is back to normal? I just don't fucking care enough to call Davide Fabbri's mother's twat a superfund site full of dog paddling sperm where the only babies made could either be creatures like the one from the movie Prophecy (not The Prophecy! That one doesn't have the creature I'm speaking of!) or artists that make me wish I'd been born deaf, dumb, and blind. Mostly blind. But I'll take being deaf as well so that nobody can tell me how bad the art is. I don't know why I chose to be dumb too. Maybe so I have a better chance of being a super smeller?

"So what about the story?" nobody is still reading this to ask. Well, the story's okay. It's by Tim Seeley and it features John Constantine and The Huntress. That's a combination that makes it impossible for a story to be terrible. But this is a comic book which means 75% of the reason people are reading it is for the art. And that art is horrible.

P.S. It's possible the terrible art is due to inker Christian Dalla Vecchia or colorist Carrie Strachan. If that's the case, apply all of my insults to their mother's vaginas and send my apologies to Davide's mom's twat.


Detective Comics #977
By Tynion IV, Fernandez, Barrows, Ferreira, Kalisz, and Lucas

Rating: I'm going to drop this comic book because I'm sick of typing that IV after Tynion's name. Also, I guess, for some other less important reasons. One of them is that I'm tired of Tynion's Bat-stories. Here are some things which Tynion thinks makes a good story: smartest kid on Earth thinks up super smart stuff that could revolutionize everything but uses it to stop petty criminals in Gotham; smartest kid on Earth meets other smartest kid on Earth and they smart things up; smartest kid on Earth makes older people look stupid and bitter and gender normative; smartest kid on Earth acts boring and bland and makes me throw up five times from extreme boredom. "Maybe can we have less smartest person in the DC Universe stories?" I say as I sit eager to read The Terrifics #2 because it only features the 3rd smartest person on Earth. "I can't wait to see how dumb heroes tackle problems!" I exclaim while shoving five Oreos into my mouth so that the Non-Certified Spouse in the next room hears, "GRRBBLE GRPDT FLBABBLOLL *hack sputter choke*!" Should I be concerned that she waited for ten minutes of silence after choking on the cookies to check on me?

Gross.

Justice League of America #27
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

Rating: More time travel nonsense with an added side of "Earth superheroes exist because some proto-superguy came to Earth in the Jurassic period and left a footprint." What a time to have just lost Lobo! He'd be immune to Chronos's plan to erase the idea of Earthly superheroes! I knew the Justice League of America was fucked when Lobo chose to leave. Mostly I knew that because it would cause me to stop raving about this comic book and begin treating it like every other shitty DC title. He was this book's Kevlar!

I wish Steve Orlando's name was Steve Orlando IV so I would have a good reason to drop this book.


Demon: Hell is Earth #5
By Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor

Rating: This comic book just reminds me that there was once a Demon comic book written by Alan Grant and drawn by Val Semeiks that was so entertaining that I didn't mind that I wasn't getting laid. Later after I totally laid a non-made-up girl that doesn't exist just for the sake of the story and so that I don't suffer the embarrassment of being another virgin on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that the comic book was better. That might be a controversial opinion because according to everybody who has ever had an orgasm, apparently nothing is better than an orgasm. That's something that I probably agree with so now my argument has been completely invalidated since even I don't support it. Maybe I should stop discussing orgasms before you begin trying to picture the contorted face I make when my totally real sex partner makes me orgasm. Here's a clue to help you visualize it: Disney log flume souvenir photo.

I would love to reread Grant's Demon comic book (along with the later issues by Ennis and McCrea) but those comic books are still in the basement of the house in which I grew up. The good news is that my mother is driving up to visit this summer and she's offered to bring up more comic books! The bad news is that my mother is coming up to visit!

I haven't even read this comic book and I'm purporting to rate it. I'm beginning to wonder if I even need to read the comic books I'm reviewing any more. It would certainly save me a lot of money. And as an added benefit, I could start reviewing Marvel books too!


Suicide Squad #38
By Williams, Derenick, and Arreola

Rating: I forgot to take this off of my pull list. Maybe my subconscious won't allow it. I try to cancel it but then I black out and wake up naked in a pile of old Ostrander issues. Maybe if I get hypnotized, I'll be able to do it. Because it really needs to be done. This comic book is so terrible that I'm beginning to fantasize about an Ann Nocenti version of the Squad drawn by Brett Booth.


The Terrifics #2
By Reis, Lemire, Luis, Tarragona, and Maiolo

First let me offer congratulations to the creative team for making Linnya Wazoo, the only female of the group, super hot. That might sound sarcastic because what female superhero isn't super hot, right? But it's not sarcastic. That congratulations comes from the bottom of my heart and the tip of something else. Probably my brain but don't make me declare that while hooked up to a lie detector unless you want to be offended. And if you want to be offended, just accept that, yes, I meant my erect penis. But seriously, you try not having an erect penis when looking at Tinnya Wazoo in that tight uniform.

Mister Terrific's uniform is just as tight but that only suggests that he has no genitalia. That Linnya has no discernible genitalia is hot because my mind is going crazy imagining what a woman looks like down there. I bet a woman's private place is just an image of a naked woman, right? That would be hot on so many levels. Probably.

I felt guilty, ashamed, and reprimanded when Linnya said, "Don't look at me."

I had a huge crush on a girl named Marilyn Mendoza in junior high. She spent every lunch in the library so I would too so that I could stare at her (I was with friends, of course! I didn't just sit their creepily alone. I was creepy while with friends). One day, her friends noticed me staring at her. As she walked out of the library, she came past my table and said, "I don't like being stared at." After that, I was heartbroken but I basically abandoned my crush and tried to ignore her. I stopped staring and just tried to not die from sadness. A few months later, she walked past me as I was going into the school wing with my locker and she said, "Don't go in there. I think a fight is about to break out." But I said I needed to go to my locker. At least I think I did. I might have said, "Grbble snack pediddle." It was hard to tell with my heart beating so loudly and my love machine whirring back into action.

Some time after that, we were sitting across from each other in the library passing notes back and forth. At one point, her note to me said, "You're weird." I don't know what I wrote in response to that. She responded, "I like you anyway." I didn't even know how to respond to that and, weirdly, stopped passing the note back and forth.

Some time after that, she convinced her friends to join the P.E. class that me and my friends were signing up for. During that class, she tried to casually give me one of her school pictures and I, shyly and stupidly, laughed it off and didn't take it.

If you're wondering what the fuck was wrong with me, you're still miles behind the amount of thought I've put into that.

Some time after that, at the end of the school year, she asked me if she could sign my 9th grade year book. She wrote a long note that seemed a bit form-letter-ish but was sweet and way more eloquent than the "P.S. I'll miss you" that I wrote in hers. Her cursive was beautiful and immaculate and she surrounded what she wrote with junior high school 80's designs. After signing her name, she wrote, "P.S. Say hi to Kim for me! JK!" Kim was a girl I'd known since elementary school and we always sat next to each other in class because our last names were so close alphabetically. We were friendly enough that I guess it seemed flirtatious. Being an anti-social shy nerd, I couldn't flirt. Also I didn't even know what "JK" meant.

Some time after that, in the middle of summer after 9th grade, my friend Sal was looking through my yearbook. He said, "Who is this girl who said she loves you?" And I was all, "What are you talking about, you stupid illiterate idiot?" He showed me Marilyn's note to me and sort of mixed in with the designs she'd made, she'd written, "Luv you, kid!" I never saw Marilyn Mendoza again.

So you see, children! The moral of this story is to stop staring at women when they want you to stop staring at them and they'll fall in love with you so that you can throw the entire potential of a doomed and awkward childhood romance into the toilet with your weird behaviors! Isn't love grand?!

That short story was probably better than 95% of all of the comic books I've ever read over my lifetime. That might sound arrogant but I'm just stating the non-subjective facts. "Non-subjective" means "objective"!

Linnya tells her origin story to the other Terrifics and I think it's supposed to be tragic but I wound up laughing a lot. See, she was on vacation with her parents when some space problem cropped up. For some reason, the ship they were in had an escape pod which only had room for one member of the crew. I suppose that makes sense because why would a ship the size of a Volkswagen house another ship the size of a Volkswagen to escape in case something happened to the first Volkswagen? But then it doesn't make sense either because why have an escape pod that only allows for one person in a ship to escape? That's going to make for a seriously tense game of roshambo.

Anyway, Linnya's parents send her off in the pod which subsequently gets sucked into the space problem while the parents go free. I bet they were kicking themselves for weeks over that mishap.

Luckily Linnya aged while stuck in phantom form without needing to eat or pee otherwise I'd be feeling even more shame and guilt over the way her uniform fits. She doesn't say how old she is but she must be that perfect female age where she's old enough so that nobody can arrest you for wanting to engage her in adult pastimes but young enough that she's not yet thirty and gross.

I learned that women don't matter after thirty from songs by Marina and the Diamonds and Lily Allen. I don't think they were meant as criticisms of that way of thinking at all!

Metamorpho tries to touch Phantom Girl without her consent and his hands pass right through her. He then apologizes but not, I think, for the non-consensual attempt at contact. I think he's sorry that his hand passed through her titties. That does seem inappropriate.

Um, so, the Terrifics escape the Dark Multiverse and everything works out. And in only two issues! I mean, there is the problem that they can't wander more than a few dozen feet away from one another without all of them dying painfully. But that's just a plot point to force them to work together for the entire run of this comic series. It's not a real issue!

Rating: I hate this comic book way less than I hate all of the other comic books I'm reading (aside from Batman and Mister Miracle and Snagglepuss and maybe Eternity Girl). I might even sort of like this book even though it features Plastic Man. Plus there hasn't been a bum like Linnya Wazoo's since the early days of The New 52 Supergirl!


Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4
By Russell, Stilwell, Feehan, Vazquez, Parsons, Mounts, and Campbell

Rating: This is the kind of comic book that will get reviewers straining their intelligence muscles. It's the kind of book you have to talk smartly about or else your review site will look like it's run by rubes. It's the kind of comic book that requires footnotes and mentions of how much you know about specific events in history and how they differ from their portrayal here. It's the kind of review that I'd never do. My only criticism with it is that the anthropomorphic animals don't wear pants and yet I haven't seen one animal ding-dong or hoo-ha.

I didn't realize while writing the above with left leaning comic book reviewers in mind that it would be even more true for right leaning comic book reviewers. But apparently this is just the type of comic book that gets them to write about how much they know about history so that when they say, "This comic book is boring," it will have more authority than just saying, "I disagree with the obvious leftist slant in the politics and the most damning critique I can give it is saying, 'Meh.'"

Sometimes I think if my mind were erased and I was left as a blank slate with no knowledge of how the universe worked or what exactly was going on, but I still understood language (only the English language, of course. What am I? Not American?!), I would know instantly which side of the political aisle I belonged on just by which responses from one side to the other I enjoyed more. So I wouldn't be moved by "You're just shocking to be shocking" (or, even better, "You think you're shocking but you're not," which is just another way of saying, "I was shocked but I don't want to admit that you shocked me." Although what is "being shocked" anyway? Isn't that what humor is all about? You don't laugh because you see the punch line coming. You laugh because it jumps out from behind a bush and shoves its finger up your ass. No wait. That probably isn't a laughing matter because I just realized that analogy is rape) but I would totally be won over by "You've probably never made a woman come." After which, I might have to concede that the lame argument about people being shocking just to be shocking might have a granule of truth. Although, having been accused of "being shocking for the sake of being shocking" by boring people on the boring Internet, I can say that, from my perspective, most people aren't out there trying to be shocking. A lot of us just don't hold anything sacred and say things that make us laugh, figuring other people will find it funny as well.


Deathstork vs. Batman #30
By Priest, Pagulayan, Paz, and Cox

How many times have Batman and Deathstork fought now? Don't they do it every six months or so? I think DC Comics has a permanent Google Calendar alert set for this event. Occasionally they'll trash the Batman vs. Deathstork event and ramp it up so that it's Deathstork vs. Superman. I think sometime in the early 90s, the decision was made to alternate which hero Deathstork has to beat to continually prove that he's the best super-villain in the DC Universe. Although I don't think anybody at DC has thought of him as a villain since just after he stopped having sex with a minor. Since then, they're constantly playing up his mercenary with a sense of ethics card. When he fights with heroes, it's understood to be some kind of misunderstanding.

I guess he sometimes battles Wonder Woman too but since Daniel or Finch or Mrs. Finch was writing that story, I've mostly purged it from my memory.

Rating: Batman finds evidence that Damian might be Deathstork's son. He's desperate to finally learn if he can write Robin out of his will and he's willing to murder Deathstork's ability to make money from murder until he clears up the confusing newly discovered DNA results. Deathstork's response is to threaten Batman and Batman's family because that's never caused the violence to escalate in the past. What is wrong with these two guys? They know exactly what to say to make a conflict between them last for six issues. That's just long enough to sell as a graphic novel later.

My only question with regards to Batman and Deathstork constantly fighting is why does Batman allow Deathstork to keep killing? Is it because Batman knows he can't beat him? Or is it the same reason Batman lets Jason Todd go on killing? And Wonder Woman (who doesn't kill as often but also doesn't see the problem with it)? Is it because Batman's war on crime is only a war on random crime? He doesn't want random people dying due to criminal activity but it's okay if a criminal dies due to their criminal activity? That seems about right. He's got an old school sensibility about responsibility.

Or maybe Batman just figures if Deathstork were really a problem, Superman would throw him into the Phantom Zone. And since that has never happened (unless it has?), Deathstork must be a pretty swell guy.

Deathstork and Batman didn't fight much in this issue so Deathstork vs. Batman has started off in a disappointing manner. But since Priest is writing this, I bet he takes a completely different tack with it. I bet Batman and Deathstork simply face off on a matter of philosophy. Instead of trading punches, they'll trade biting existential remarks about the other's ideology. Preferably while sipping cappuccinos in a Paris café.


Sorry for such a long newsletter that was all comic reviews. Maybe next time I'll just draw a bunch of sexy Dick Grayson pictures. Goodbye, jerkos!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #16 (Fourth Week of March 2018)

E!TACT! #16
The Terrifics #1, Strangers in Paradise XXV #2, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3, Deathstroke #29, Black Lightning: Cold, Dead Hands #5, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

This week, let's start with a letter:

Upright: So why’d you leave the website and turn to newsletters?

My reply: I liked the idea of doing something that was more akin to a zine than a web page. I had been playing with the idea of doing a monthly roleplaying zine to publish digitally for a dollar. It was going to be a companion piece to my cribbage roleplaying game with lots of other features. I'd even designed most of the first issue but realized I was way too far ahead of myself. I still needed to get art for the cRPG (cribbage roleplaying game and not computer roleplaying game. Maybe I need different shorthand for it) and make some tweaks with the game world.

About the same time, I was drifting away from reading as many comic books as I had been and didn't feel like writing about most of the ones I kept reading (being that the worst comic books were the most fun to write about and those were the books I had stopped reading). Plus the comic book branding on the site was never as great as it should have been being that I didn't give a fuck. What the hell does the gibberish name "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea" have to do with comic books anyway? And what kind of review site barely reviews the comic books they're writing about due to constantly segueing into "made-up" stories like masturbating in the bathroom sink (which was totally made up and not just in the way that somebody insists that something embarrassing is made-up so that the person thinks it's true because they're protesting too much but in the way where a person protests just enough so the reader thinks, "Yeah, that totally can't be true. Gross.").

So I was looking for a change and thought that before I try to publish things on Amazon or whatever online publisher isn't akin to sucking the devil's cock, I thought this could be an interesting hybrid idea. I figured I could begin doing shorter comic book reviews by dropping most of the comic book review but keeping all the tangents. Then I thought I would add more features as I went along to make it more zine-like. It would be more like my original Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea blog idea than the comic book pseudo-review site it became.

One other thing before another thing and then a final thing: people who follow you on social media sites probably rarely see anything you post. When you see a person on Twitter or Tumblr and they follow more than a few dozen people, you realize that they may as well not be following anybody. They certainly aren't seeing everything every follower posts which says to me that they don't really give a shit about any of the people they follow. I mean, obviously they do or they wouldn't follow them. But when you follow your 968th person on Twitter, do you really think you're going to see much of anything that person posts? Maybe people are spending a lot more time on these social media sites than I give them credit for!

Anyway, I decided that anybody who still felt the things I write to entertain myself were still entertaining to them, they could follow me this way. And then when they wanted to stop following me because I hurt their stupid gun loving Republican feelings, they could unsubscribe. At the very least, I'd have a better gauge on how many people were, in some small way, feeling entertained by stuff that entertains me.

The other thing: most of the people on the Internet don't deserve most of the things on the Internet. So this is my velvet rope to keep out the morons.

That final thing I mentioned: in a future Newsletter, I will start trying to sell things. I just have to finish a few of them and find an artist. And then decide how to publish them. I'm really looking forward to selling everybody a copy of The Chicken by the Gate.

I still (rarely) post reviews on the website. But only to remind people that this is where I'm really spending my time. I mean the time I'm not spending playing Fortnite and Overwatch.

It's also possible that all of that is bullshit and a therapist would realize that the only reason I spent so much time working on the website previously was because it was also time spent hanging out with my cat Judas. Once he died, it just wasn't the same anymore. But that imagined therapist can go fuck herself for making me sad all over again. Stupid jerk!

Comic Book Reviews!

The Terrifics #1
By Reis, Lemire, Prado, and Maiolo

I don't know why I scanned the middle part of the triple sized vertical cover when the bottom part is the most interesting because it features Tom Strong.

There was a time when putting Plastic Man into your mainstream comic book meant you didn't give a fuck about your comic book. It screamed "This comic book is a silly piece of shit that nobody is going to take seriously." Which is weird because I've always thought that that was how comic books should always present themselves. Unless, of course, you're Chris Ware and then your comic book should scream, "You are going to weep harder than that time that life kicked you square in the crotch and then pissed on your face and recorded it to play back in front of all of your loved ones every time they almost thought perhaps they might be a little bit proud of you."

Writers should never fear putting whimsically silly characters into their comic books. But the problem with most writers is that they're writers. And writers often have this pressing need to seem profound and intellectual. If I were allowed to declare who could be a writer and who couldn't, I'd immediately disqualify all men with severe daddy issues who need to prove themselves to the world. I think we've had enough of those. Besides, why aren't they going into Wall Street with the other "Daddy! Daddy! My bank account proves I'm not a failure!" asshats? Then they'd have to pass my only test. I'd put them alone in a room with a covered easel (and hidden cameras, of course!). Then I'd press a button and the sheet would drop from the easel where a canvas would rest with simply the word "fart" on it. If they sneered or rolled their eyes or clutched their "I'm above this kind of juvenile bullshit" pearls, I'd announce that they couldn't be a writer. Right after I filled the room with my stored farts, of course.

Maybe it's a good thing I'm not in charge of who gets to write. I suppose some highbrow bullshit that gets you thinking about stuff I never want to think about is good for somebody somewhere. But I'd rather read Vonnegut than Hemingway. I'd also rather force people to do what I would do.

But then maybe I should also remember that I'm re-reading a bunch of Piers Anthony books currently. I'm not sure I'd say he's a sexist writer but his works are definitely burdened by the male chauvinistic attitudes of mid to late twentieth century thinking. I know I'm supposed to be commenting on The Terrifics #1 but here's an excerpt from A Spell for Chameleon, a book written in 1977 which won the Novel of the Year from the British Fantasy Society. I meant to write some kind of essay on the sexist and gendered attitudes in the Xanth novels but I'm too lazy to get into that kind of structured bullshit. That stuff is written by people who don't smirk at the word "farts."

Excerpt from A Spell for Chameleon (for review purposes only or something. Stupid Pickle Boy was supposed to get his law degree to help me out with junk like this but did he? Nooooo! He decided he'd rather work at Subway):

The others arrived: two men and three young women. The men were ordinary, bearded farmers, one young, one middle-aged; the girls ranged from indifferent to ravishing. Bink forced his eyes away from the prettiest one lest he stare. She was the most voluptuous, striking, black-haired beauty he had ever seen, a diamond in the mud of this region.
     "Now the six of you sit down across from each other at this table," the bailiff said in his official voice. "I'll do the talking when the judge comes. Mind you, this is a play—but it's secret. When I swear you in, it's for keeps—absolutely no blabbing about the details after you get out, understand?"
     They all nodded. Bink was becoming more perplexed. He now understood about playing opposite a sweet young thing—but what kind of play was this, with an audience of one, that no one was permitted to report on later? Well, so be it; maybe it was a kind of magic.
     The three men sat in a row on one side of the table, and the three girls faced them. Bink was opposite the beautiful one; her knees touched his, for the table was narrow. They were silky smooth, sending a shiver of appreciation up his legs. Remember Sabrina! he told himself. He was not ordinarily swayed by a pretty face, but this was an extraordinary face. It didn't help that she wore a tight sweater. What a figure!
     The judge entered—a portly man with impressive paunch and sideburns. "All stand," the bailiff said.
     They all stood respectfully.
     The judge took a seat at the end of the table and the bailiff moved to the far side. They all sat down.
     "Do you three ladies swear to tell no truth other than that presented in this hearing, any time, anywhere, and to shut up about that?" the bailiff demanded.
     "We do," the girls chorused.
     "And do you three louts swear the same?"
     "We do," Bink said with the others. If he was supposed to lie here, but never to talk about it outside, did that mean it wasn't really a lie? The bailiff knew what was true and what was false, presumably, so in effect—
     "Now this is the hearing for an alleged rape," the bailiff announced. Bink, shocked, tried to conceal his dismay. Were they supposed to act out a rape?
     "Among these present," the bailiff continued, "is the girl who says she was raped—and the man she charges. He says it happened but it was voluntary. That right, men?"
     Bink nodded vigorously along with the others. Brother! He would rather have chopped wood for his night's lodging. Here he was, possibly lying about a rape he never committed.
     "This is done anonymously to protect the reputation of those involved," the bailiff said. "So's to have an advisory opinion, in the presence of the first parties, without advertising it to the whole community."
     Bink was beginning to understand. A girl who had been raped could be ruined, though it was no fault of her own; many men would refuse to marry her for that reason alone. Thus she could win her case but lose her future. A man guilty of rape could be exiled, and a man accused of rape would be viewed with suspicion, complicating his own future. It was almost, he thought grimly, as serious a crime as having no magic. Getting at the truth could be a very delicate matter, not something either party would want to advertise in a pubic trial. Win or lose, reputations would suffer grievously. Yet how could justice be done if it never came to trial? Thus this private, semianonymous hearing. Would it suffice?
     "She says she was walking down by the Gap," the bailiff said, glancing at his notes. "He came up behind her, grabbed her, and raped her. Right, girls?"
      The three girls nodded, each looking hurt and angry. The vigorous head motion caused the knee of the girl facing Bink to shake, and another ripple of suggestion traveled up his leg. What an opposite lady, in what a play!
     "He says he was standing there and she came up and made a suggestion and he took her up on it. Right, men?"
     Bink nodded with the others. He hoped his side won; this was nervous business.
     Now the judge spoke. "Was it close to a house?"
     "'Bout a hundred feet," the bailiff said.
      "Then why did she not scream?"
     "He said he'd push her off the brink if she made a sound," the bailiff replied. "She was frozen in terror. Right, girls?"
     They nodded—and each looked momentarily terrified. Bink wondered which of the three had actually been raped. Then he corrected his thought hastily: which one had made the accusation? He hoped it wasn't the one opposite him.
     "Were the two known to each other prior to the occasion?"
     "Yes, Your Honor."
      "Then I presume she would have fled him at the outset, had she disliked him—and that he would not have forced her if she trusted him. In a small community like this, people get to know each other very well, and there are few actual surprises. This is not conclusive, but it strongly suggests she had no strong aversion to contact with him, and may have tempted him with consequence she later regretted. I would probably, were this case to come up in formal court, find the man not guilty of the charge, by virtue of reasonable doubt."
      The three men relaxed. Bink became aware of a trickle of sweat on his forehead, generated while he listened to the judge's potential decision.
      "Okay, you have the judge's ifso," said the bailiff. "You girls still want to bring it to open trial?"
      Grim-faced, looking betrayed, the three girls shook their heads, no. Bink felt sorry for his opposite. How could she avoid being seductive? She was a creature constructed for no other visible purpose than ra—than love.
     "Then take off," the bailiff said. "Remember—no talking outside, or we'll have a real trial, for contempt of court." The warning seemed superfluous; the girls would hardly be talking about this one. The guilty—uh, innocent—man would also shutup, and Bink himself just wanted to get clear of this village. That left only one man who might want to talk—but if he breathed a word, all the others would know who had blabbed. There would be silence.

That's...um...that's quite the scene, Piers. Maybe this was Mr. Anthony's Shakespeare moment where he got to put a play within a play. But what a weird fucking play in what is supposedly a light-hearted fantasy adventure. I suspect Piers thought he had figured out the way to deal with rape charges in a sensible fashion. Which makes it even more odd that, throughout the entire scene, Bink focuses on the erection he has over the woman sitting across from him. He even lets his mind wander to how she's made for rape! What the fuck, Piers?!

So in Mr. Anthony's world, the worst part about rape isn't the rape. It's that the rape trial ruins the reputation of both the accused and accuser, no matter the jury's decision. So it's best to hold the trial in front of a male judge who seems to believe that all rape cases should end in clearing the name of the accused due to reasonable doubt. Unless, I suppose, there was a witness. Although if there was a witness who was against rape, I would assume they would have stopped the rape. If the witness was pro-rape and probably jerking off while watching, why would that witness bother to come forward? Or would he be forced to come forward with two people who weren't him and they would all just shake their heads no when asked if they saw anything?

It's a weird fucking moment in this book that won best fantasy novel of the year. And while it seems to me that Piers Anthony really thought he was coming up with a sensitive way to deal with bringing rape to trial, he simply just reiterated how rape is dealt with at trial anyway! The guy is almost always protected and seen as innocent while the woman is blamed through questioning her actions. How is Piers rape justice any better than the reality? In fact, it's actually worse. What Piers seems to be suggesting is a way to bring rape to trial so that the man, who will not be found guilty anyway, gets to also keep his non-rape reputation intact!

And that part where Bink thinks about the woman across from him being made for rape and how she can't help seducing people? It's, unbelievably, not the worst part. Later when Bink asks the bailiff to give him directions, the bailiff explains that Wynne, the seductress that sat across from him, can help him. Bink is suddenly nervous that if he's alone with her, she'll accuse him of rape. The bailiff identifies her as, "Your opposite. The one you almost raped." He then pauses for a moment and then says, "Not that I blame you."

Jesus fucking Christ! I'd better just read The Terrifics #1 now before I mention how the males in the rest of the Xanth books think about women! It's fucking terrible. The Terribles!

Back to The Terrifics #1
By those guys I mentioned previously

Mister Terrific begins the book by calling all but three people on Earth sheep-like zombies without an ounce of curiosity or intellect. It's possible he's talking about less people than that but seeing as how he's the third smartest person on Earth (behind two other men who are men), I feel like he's rubbing his giant brain penis all over my face. It turns out I don't like it as much as I thought I would.

Mister Terrific's opening speech is probably meant to impress me. He refuses to be ignorant of any part of the mystery of the universe. He says, "I demand to know the answers. I seek out these mysteries and solve them. I wrangle the unknowable...and pin the impossible down." Aside from the titillating sexual imagery of this statement, I'm not a fan. It just shows he's as needy for meaning as the faithful! Let some of it go, man! You can't solve every mystery of the universe because you're a human being which means you're basically a narcissist which means your ultimate search for truth is a search for a reason for your personal existence. There isn't a reason, man! You're a cosmic accident and you're either lucky or unlucky to have been born into whatever this reality happens to be for. It exists because it exists and you exist because you exist and tautologies exist because sometimes there is no other reason for something than that thing's own being. Besides, you're an atheist in a world where gods and devils have been proven to exist. How smart can you actually be?!

Oh, Mister Terrific ends that sexy wrestling quote with "I guess that's why they call me Mr. Terrific." No. That's why you call yourself Mr. Terrific! You made up your own superhero nickname. You chose to be called Mr. Terrific and that's why people call you Mr. Terrific! I think we're back to tautologies!

I'm fairly certain saying that to a caveman is some kind of racist. Speciesest, maybe?

Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, and Plastic Man all wind up in the Dark Multiverse so they can find the fourth member of The Terrifics, Linnya Wazzo. It's not as funny as Tiny Wazoo but I'm still chuckling. She's one of them Phantom Girls from that comic book about teenagers fucking each other constantly. They also meet a hologram of Tom Strong which declares Tom Strong is probably dead and the people who found the hologram had better be some kind of godlike hero because it's now up to them to save the universe.

The Terrifics #1 Rating: Didn't the universe just get saved in Metal? How many times is this stupid universe going to need saving? The worst conceit of comic books is that humans (or humanoid alien equivalents) need to act as property managers for the universe. I'm pretty sure it's doing fine. And if somebody comes along to destroy it because they're a super-villain with a really terrible plan (I mean, why would you want to destroy the reality in which you live? I guess they must all be super depressed. Maybe I should re-read Crisis on Infinite Earths keeping in mind that the Anti-Monitor is just mentally ill), isn't that just part of the universe taking care of itself (poorly, I admit)?

Anyway, I hope Tom Strong isn't really dead or else this comic book is terrible. Although Tom Strong not written by Alan Moore is probably better off dead, right?


Strangers in Paradise XXV #2
By Moore

I don't know how to feel about this. I already did my last of my lifetime re-read of the complete Strangers in Paradise and now Terry Moore is adding another chapter to the story? (This is where everybody reading thinks, "Now here comes the "more/Moore" joke!" This is also where I say, "Fuck you! I'm no hack!" Then I think, "See, Brain? You don't know everything, do you?! I knew that more/Moore joke was way too easy! I'm glad I listen to you, Penis.")

I suppose I could have refused to purchase it. But then where would I get my fill of sort-of-lesbian stories that don't devolve into complete pornography? Nowhere on the Internet, that's certain. Although now that I've described Strangers in Paradise as "sort-of-lesbian stories that don't devolve into complete pornography," I'm beginning to wonder what the appeal was. Perhaps the appeal was that, while reading it, I was anticipating the devolving into complete pornography which is what kept me hooked. Only now, after the series was finished, do I realize it was the biggest blue balls of my life. At least Elfquest finished up with a huge elf orgy!

Maybe that's why I didn't continue to read all the Elfquest stories after "Kings of the Broken Wheel." Because I already nutted! Although it probably has more to do with Wendy and Richard Pini setting up an Elfquest fan-fiction publication and brought Marv Wolfman into the mix in some way. I don't remember if he actually did anything. I just remember him being at the Elfquest Movie panel at San Diego Comic-con which caused me to think, "I guess some elves are going to be raped in the movie?"

Mentioning rape reminds me that I should get around to finishing my Places and Predators Hero Text Adventure. For one of the puzzles, there was going to be a magic wand that removes the first letter of any object to turn it into a new object. I thought about having a grape in the game so if somebody used the wand on it, the response would just be, "NO." Or maybe, since the object of the game is to buy the perfect present for the Hero's girlfriend, the Virgin, I could allow the player to make the most horrible choice they could ever make in a game. I wonder if I can program an EMP to go off via Inform?

Although I guess I already did that in my webcomic, Dwarf Lover (not the EMP! The part where the reader chooses to rape somebody!). Part of the series was in Choose Your Own Adventure format and one of the choices led the reader to attempt rape. The choices weren't "Do you rape Sheila?" and "Do you not do something terrible even though you're chaotic evil?" It was a little more ambiguous. Maybe I should have put a Content Warning on the rapey choice.

This quote is from Picasso at age five arguing with a playmate at a friend's birthday party.

Katchoo finds herself in the town of Manson as she searches for the missing Parker Girl, Stephanie. It reminds me that I need to finish reading my Rachel Rising omnibus. I hope I can remember what was happening when I left off. I also hope my forearms are still strong enough to lift that thing.

Strangers in Paradise XXV #2 Rating: This comic book has a completely black back cover. Why do publishers still allow comic books to be made with black covers? I can't say for sure because I never wash my hands but even if I had just washed and dried my hands, I'm confident they'd leave greasy prints all over the stupid thing anyway. Not that it matters since most of my comic books will almost certainly wind up in a landfill somewhere after I die and my current cat at the time of death partially eats my face. But it's still annoying. Aside from that criticism, it was a typical Strangers in Paradise book except for the absence of Francine. Although the way Terry Moore draws most women so similarly (also maybe I'm comic book face blind), I could have been reading Motor Girl or Echo or Rachel Rising. But I don't think I was. I'm pretty sure it was Katchoo stuck on the edge of the cliff for the entirety of the story.


Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3
By Russell, Stilwell, Feehan, Vazquez, Morales, Mounts, and Campbell

Rating: Do I have to give this a rating? It's written by Mark Russell and when has he ever failed to pack a whole lot of philosophical and social commentary into the most unlikely franchises? Well, two of them, anyway (meaning The Flinstones and Prez, for those not in the know). This isn't just a comic book about a gay playwright heading for a precipitous fall thanks to Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt. It's also about patriotism and acting and immigration and love and family and cartoon characters and pretty much anything else Russell feels like discussing. And it's all done so well that I don't have to comment on it because I'd just be repeating what he said but with dick jokes in. Just like with The Flintstones! And Prez! And probably that Bible thing he wrote that I won't read even though I'm sure it's nothing like my Bible thing being that his rewrites the entire Bible in a fairly short amount of space and I'm dissecting The Bible so thoroughly that I've already got 300 pages on Genesis and I'm only to Joseph's international work in Egypt.

What I'm saying is this book gets the highest rating in whatever rating format I should probably be using. Lots of stars or thumbs or buttholes or something.


Deathstork #29
By Priest, Neves, Scott, and Cox

Rating: I remember praising Priest for this book and the way he was telling the stories. But it doesn't work anymore. The book began as a bimonthly book (twice a month not every two months. Stupid English) so his multiple story lines and quick scenes to establish character worked well. But now that it's monthly, I can't remember all of these tangled story threads. The book is just too confusing. Maybe Priest forgot that he was writing comic books. He does know that we're a much dumber audience than actual book readers, doesn't he? I guess he doesn't because I have no idea what's going on in this book anymore. Except that Deathstork statutory raped Terra and now in this issue, he's simply mocking her for being his victim. I may not be a young teenager on Tumblr who is constantly amazed when they experience any kind of media from before they were born in which people are decent and socially progressive but I think what Deathstork is doing is probably wrong? I mean, sure, exes can be super annoying. I get that part! But I think when you've been in a relationship with a minor and later the police show up at your door, you probably aren't supposed to roll your eyes and say, "Exes, amirite?!"

I would watch this show.

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #5
By Isabela, Henry, Guichet, and Pantazis

Rating: This is the penultimate issue. That means Black Lightning gets his ass severely beaten while Tobias Whale tells him his entire super villain plan. Next issue, Black Lightning's heart or will or belief in himself will grow ten sizes bigger and he'll summon the power to not be killed by Tobias Whale. Then he'll be all, "Thank goodness I now know Whale's plan so I can stop it efficiently in twenty short pages!" Or nineteen pages, anyway, because he needs to stick his dick in the principal of the school where he works on page twenty.

Letters to Me!

KBwrites: Harrumph! Still didn't get the newsletter via email. Oh well, I'm a bright boy, I just looked at it online.

"At one time in my life, I would have scoffed at that. I really did think, at some point in the past, that comic book readers were less likely to be prejudiced and racist assholes. I have no idea why I thought that. We've had plenty of evidence to the contrary to wake me from my naïve stupor. Every time some white male character gets traded out for a minority character, a large percentage of fanboys simply lose their shit."

Yeah, you'd think that people who enjoyed comic books might cleave to the ideals of their favorite characters. Even I am that most embarrassing type of comic readers, the Hal Jordan fan, exactly because I'd like to foster his virtues in myself: he knows right from wrong and cannot be intimidated into doing the wrong thing. (In theory every superhero has a healthy serving of those virtues, but they're what Hal excels at.) I'd be really disappointed in myself if what I liked about Hal was that he makes big green things and there are lots of explosions.

"Duke Thomas"

Agreed. The correct thing to do is present the character to the readers, and if they warm to the character, keep using him. If they aren't into the character, work on the concept or the execution -- but don't keep shoving the character at us in hopes that we will eventually give in and like him. This isn't a romantic comedy and we aren't the woman with the jerk boyfriend (Damien).

"it seems the plot dealt with Thomas Wayne being a monster who worked with Carmine Falcone."

Another story I would have passed on. While there might be good stories to tell about Thomas and Martha Wayne, giving one or the other a dark backstory doesn't rise to the level of "good". It introduces a conceptual problem as well. The deal with Batman is, Bruce Wayne learned at an early age that anyone can be taken from you for absolutely no reason, and he makes it his mission to protect people from being killed. Except, if Thomas Wayne was himself a criminal with a heinous list of misdeeds to his name, then his being killed by a criminal isn't random tragedy; it's poetic justice at a minimum, and (depending on the details) possibly even a direct consequence of his own actions. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword; he who lives by carpentry dies by carpentry (cough Jesus cough); and he who lives by crime dies by crime. It doesn't change the value of Batman's mission but it does ruin the thematic foundations.

"So how does that relate to Batman? Well, he began his journey just like a bill to stop another dog from dying on an airline. His parents were killed senselessly so he passed the Batman Law to prevent something like that from ever happening again. It's purely selfish. And while I agree that it could be a move to increase the greater good, it seems most Batman writers don't approach it that way."

Yes. I would further argue that it's not that Bruce Wayne wants to beat crime specifically, but the thousand ways human beings can suffer. Batman is just his way of dealing with crime that is beyond the scope of the Gotham PD.

"Like Tynion in this issue. Batman is less concerned with the fact that Batwoman probably saved hundreds of lives by killing an out of control Clayface. All Batman cares about is that she broke his rules. Batman has decided to embrace his system more than the reason that system exists. It's to save people."

Adults have to deal with competing principles pretty often. It shouldn't be that difficult for an adult to write a Batman who wrestles with competing principles. Though to Tynion's credit, it sounds like he had other characters express the various perspectives, so it's not like he hasn't thought this through. He just makes Batman sound like a moron.

Go Hommlet!

My reply:

"Yeah, you'd think that people who enjoyed comic books might cleave to the ideals of their favorite characters."

Maybe this is where my naiveté comes from. When I (and you!) began reading comic books, super heroes were actually heroic (even if not long after I started reading, many of them became bumbling). The generations of comic book readers after us grew up on dark Batman and dark Daredevil and depressing everything else (most of it published by 90s Image (which should be no reflection on current Image!)). They didn't give a shit about Hal's code. They just wanted to see some aliens pay with their lives. Things became less about saving people and making the world a better place to focus more on punishing bad guys. That's a hugely warped view of what seemed to be, at one time, the essential nature of comic books.

I don't know if you were ever into computer games but I often think back to Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and how truly groundbreaking it was. Instead of questing to kill some terrible monster or stop evil from taking over the land, the entire premise was to make yourself a shining example for the people of Britannia. Imagine playing a game that refuses to let you win not just because you stole and murdered but also because you lied or refused to give to the needy or slaughtered monsters who were fleeing from combat? I imagine there are a lot of gamers today who couldn't even comprehend how Ultima IV was entertainment.

"Another story I would have passed on. While there might be good stories to tell about Thomas and Martha Wayne, giving one or the other a dark backstory doesn't rise to the level of 'good'."

You're right in how it changes Batman's entire philosophy. He'd be a different sort of dark knight if he grew up with the knowledge that his father was a criminal who most likely got what he deserved. Just finding out the premise of the Telltale Game made me glad I never picked it up (not that there was any chance of that; I played the first chapter of their Walking Dead game (because it was free) and grew bored fairly quickly). But I did appreciate the way this story was told in the aftermath of the one I'm going to assume was shitty and terrible.

"[Tynion] just makes Batman sound like a moron."

I don't think James Tynion IV likes Batman at all. I believe he's writing Detective Comics with the view that Batman is all that is wrong with the patriarchy and the kids are going to teach him what's right. But he also knows that he can't get too crazy with this idea because Batman fans read Detective Comics. So he introduced into the mix the super patriarchal figure that also happens to be a patriarch: Batwoman's dad. I suspect we're going to see Batwoman become an example of a woman being manipulated by the Patriarchy into believing its lies. That's a story that I don't mind seeing. But I just don't get why Batman should be seen as the enemy when he's way more progressive than just about everybody else in Gotham. Except maybe Alfred Pennyworth. And when he's visiting, Dick Grayson, of course.

"Go Hommlet!"

Yeah. Straight to hell! I was so mad when I bought that module and discovered it was all about roleplaying with hardly any hacking or slashing. And then they made me wait years for The Temple of Elemental Evil where all the good stuff was located!

And that's a wrap! Goodbye, jerkos!